Chamber looks for turnaround with Murray at helm

Thursday

May 23, 2013 at 6:00 AMMay 23, 2013 at 3:11 PM

By Shaun Sutner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

The business organization that Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray is poised to lead has floundered in recent years, running annual deficits and seeing its viability described as “tenuous” by a city power broker who proposed merging it with other business groups.

Even so, officials of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce say the 2,300-member organization is on the financial upswing and Mr. Murray, who is set to resign his post and take over the chamber next month, has the executive and economic development skills to boost its stature and effectiveness.

“We are so excited about this hire,” said Susan Mailman, vice chairman of the chamber's board of directors and owner and president of Coghlin Electrical Contractors. “Ask around Worcester about the economic development stuff going on around here and whose fingerprints are on it — Tim Murray's.”

But critics of the alliance between the chamber and the former Worcester mayor, a Democrat who has been in elective office for 15 years, say it is incongruous at best to put a pro-labor liberal at the helm of a group interested in issues such as business tax cuts and zoning measures.

Mr. Murray is the first leader of the Worcester chamber without a business background in more than a decade.

The author of the 2011 report that was critical of the chamber, Worcester lawyer Michael P. Angelini, a longtime supporter of Mr. Murray, said hiring Mr. Murray would help turn the group around.

In the report, Mr. Angelini, a Massport board member, noted the chamber's dwindling membership and support and called for a consolidation of local business groups.

“Since the time I wrote that, there has been a lot more cooperation,” Mr. Angelini said. “What Tim Murray's appointment does is bring new energy to the chamber and it brings centrality to the business community's involvement in economic development.”

Ms. Mailman, the chamber vice chairman, and Richard P. Burke, the chairman, said Wednesday that the chamber's finances have stabilized.

Chamber tax returns show the group ran budget deficits of $278,225 in 2010 and $120,517 in 2011, the most recent year available. The organization posted surpluses of $96,469 in 2009 and $34,821 in 2008.

Brent J. Andersen , owner of a Worcester insurance agency and a longtime member of the chamber, said he will not renew his membership and called on other members to do the same in protest.

“The Worcester chamber is becoming an arm of the Democratic Party. I am very disappointed that the chamber board hired someone whose ideology, politics and overall agenda are totally at odds with the business community,” said Mr. Andersen, who also is treasurer of the state Republican Party.

“We're talking about someone whose entire career has been built on blind support for big labor and imposing taxes, fees and government controls that hurt businesses large and small,” Mr. Andersen added.

Supporters of Mr. Murray, 44, who was hired by a unanimous vote of the board, contend that Mr. Murray's political savvy will not only serve to stabilize the chamber's finances but also come into play working on downtown redevelopment issues with city officials, particularly City Manager Michael V. O'Brien.

As mayor, Mr. Murray was the originator of the City Square redevelopment project that has since rid downtown of an old enclosed mall and has produced several new buildings. Over the years, Chamber board members have donated more than $20,000 to Mr. Murray's campaigns.

Since he left for Beacon Hill six years ago, Mr. Murray has behind the scenes kept up a close working relationship with the city manager on development issues. Among those projects were helping the city sell Worcester Regional Airport to Massport, attract JetBlue to the airport, and bring the CSX rail yard to the city, said District 5 Councilor William J. Eddy.

Several observers noted a parallel with another former Beacon Hill politician who became a chamber leader: Paul Guzzi, a former Democratic secretary of state who, as CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, forged that group into a politically influential player.

Vincent A. Pedone, a former Democratic state representative whom Mr. O'Brien recently appointed to the Worcester Redevelopment Authority, said Mr. Murray will work with the city administration and the WRA to make the chamber more than the membership organization it has become in recent years.

“He is someone who can take the chamber, which has by all accounts been struggling, and turn it around and use the chamber to promote Worcester industry and business,” Mr. Pedone said.

The state Republican Party brought up a less flattering parallel, comparing Mr. Murray's move to the departure of former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran in 2004 for a $400,000 job heading the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. Mr. Finneran resigned from the group soon after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in the redistricting process.

Mr. Murray has been dogged by questions about his fund-raising association with former Chelsea Housing Authority chief Michael E. McLaughlin, who has pleaded guilty to four felony counts of concealing his salary from federal officials, as part of a plea agreement.

Mr. McLaughlin's sentencing, originally scheduled for earlier this month, has been rescheduled to June 14.

Tim Buckley, spokesman for the state GOP, also questioned how the chamber, which ran a deficit of more than $100,000 as recently as 2011, according to tax returns, could afford Mr. Murray's reported $200,000 salary. The current chamber CEO, Richard Kennedy, makes a base salary of $150,000. Chamber officials declined to disclose what they would pay Mr. Murray.

Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ssutner